ipl-logo

The Female In The African-American Community

1149 Words5 Pages

Role of the female in the African-American community
The first major role-change for females in the African-American community occurred in 1619, when the first African slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, to aid in the production of such profitable crops as tobacco (History, “Slavery In America”). Slavery was practiced right through in the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, and African-American slaves helped build the economic foundations of the new nation. The African female was attributed not only economic responsibilities when purchased as a slave. Sexual duties and childbearing were of primary importance to the plantocracy and white men were bewilderingly drawn to the ‘foreign charms’ of …show more content…

Delicate and sensitive, she passively suffers the abuse of her mother, father, and classmates. She is a symbol of the black community’s self-hatred and belief in its own ugliness. Others in the community, including her mother and father, act out their own self-hatred by expressing hatred towards her. Pecola’s desire for blue eyes comes from her stereotypical perception that as a black female, she needs to look beautiful to be treated beautifully. She believes that being granted the blue eyes that she wishes for would change both how others see her and what she is forced to see. The reasoning behind this approach lies beyond the 20th century, in the 19th century in fact, when slavery peeked and the African-American women were forced to be beautiful in order to gain what seemed like their freedom. Victoria Chihos demonstrates this concept in her article, The Role of Woman in Slave Communities, by writing: “Many viewed black female’s lack of modesty as a sign of their impaired moral nature and increased sex drive. The view of the African female as a manipulating temptress thus emerged and it was believed that she used it to her advantage to achieve favours and obtain prestige” (Chihos, “The Role of Women in Slave Communities”). In this excerpt, the sexuality of women is described to be advantageous in many instances. Thereon from slave communities, …show more content…

The role of the female in the African-American community is inevitably influenced by their physical appearance. As, historically, physical beauty was an easy way out for women in slave communities to reduce hard labor and focus more heavily on easier tasks such as childbearing and sexual duties, this “tradition” carried on to the 20th century in which the ugly population always had a handicap in the way they were treated not only by other communities but also by their own communities. The roles have changed drastically since the years of slavery, but the concept remained the same. African-American women with higher beauty standards obtained higher roles in their

Show More
Related
1091 Words | 5 Pages

This first raises the question if these lower class white women had any role on the plantation whatsoever, other than the blockade between overseer-slave relations. Studies have shown that the work of these women exceeds the expectations of normal housework, expanding to include producing the goods that the family needs to survive. Despite doing the skills and good work acquired by these women, the planters and even sometimes the slaves would degrade these women. Often times, the owners of the plantations saw the overseers as troublesome lowlifes and their wives and children were just extra mouths to feed. There was a level of inequality between the plantation owners and the labor managers, despite the fact that both were white.

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

In the book Ar’n’t I a women the author, Deborah Gray White, explains how the life was for the slave women in the Southern plantations. She reveals to us how the slave women had to deal with difficulties of racism as well as dealing with sexism. Slave women in these plantations assumed roles within the family as well as the community; these roles were completely different to the roles given to a traditional white female. Deborah Gray White shows us how black women had a different experience from the black men and the struggle they had to maintain their sense of womanhood against all odds, resist sexual oppression, and keep their families together. In the book the author describes two different types of women, “Jezebel” and “Mammy” they

Read More
401 Words | 2 Pages

Expounding on Scott’s gender analysis are Theda Perdue and Jennifer Morgan who focus specifically on the bodies of Indian and black women. For both Cherokee and black women, they are often overshadowed by men, their stories eclipsed due to the assumption that under the institution of slavery, women’s experiences were not much different than men. Perdue and Morgan challenge this notion, demonstrating that the lives and experiences of black and Cherokee women were different than black and Cherokee men. In placing black women and Cherokee women at the center of the narrative, Perdue and Morgan seek to enhance understanding the functions Cherokee and black women played in colonial America and how they responded to the gendered roles they were expected

Read More
960 Words | 4 Pages

A relevant example of this point is the derogatory icons of Black Women - Jezebel, Mammy, Aunt Jemima, Matriarch, and Welfare Queens (Roberts, 8). Each of these icons is rooted in the deep mythology that applies racial politics to black women by corrupting the reproduction process at

Read More
155 Words | 1 Pages

Author and Lecturer Deborah Gray White is a professor at Rutgers University who currently serves on the Board of Governors Professor of History and lectures over the Women’s and Gender Studies. She was also the co-director of “The Black Atlantic: Race, Nation and Gender” project at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis in the 90s (Web). White has authored numerous works throughout her educational career, and continues to do so, however, it is the extraordinary work she did on her Ph.D. dissertation that later turned into a much anticipated manuscript she is most known for. Ar 'n 't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South gave the world insight into the considerable marginalized plight of the enslaved women of color in the

Read More
636 Words | 3 Pages

As Glymph notes, during the Civil War the option of resorting to male power was less available”.3 This means that the white women had to come out of their gender prescriptions to take over the responsibilities of the plantation although they were still expected to observe the patriarchal hierarchy. Wives were like ‘slaves’, for their husbands expected them to be subordinate. Therefore, their use of violence to manage the plantations may be explained by the responsibility they had to take and their need to use slavery to exercise power, and elevate their position in the society. Plantation mistresses assume a special place in the institution of slavery although history is relatively silent in documenting their role in the Antebellum Era. They proved to be quite valuable to the plantation economy of the South for they took up the organizational roles upon themselves.

Read More
518 Words | 3 Pages

Gender, Race, and Rank in a Revolutionary Age: The Georgia Lowcountry 1750-1820, was written by Betty Wood and surveys the different groups of women around the time of the revolutionary era. Dr. Betty Wood is a prominent scholar and has written several articles and books in the specific areas of early American and African American history in the colonial and revolutionary era Lowcountry. Because women’s history during that era is not well documented, her analysis of early American women during the colonial and revolutionary era is important. This book shows how women are linked by their gender but divided by their race and social standings; and survey’s how their race and social standings affected their relationships and encounters with each

Read More
1049 Words | 5 Pages

Labor was the mechanism through which many people resisted their status as slaves, pivoted into lives of freedom, and earned their means to survive. Although enslaved people eventually obtained freedom, many continued into free life working jobs with which they had become familiar during their time in bondage. However, for many former slaves, labor could only be found through working available tasks under poor conditions. For men and women, these tasks were widely separate, with men often providing labor as public manual laborers, and women restricted to more private, domestic affairs. Therefore, occupations of freed people were often a continuation of similar duties performed while enslaved.

Read More
334 Words | 2 Pages

The taxing nature of “southern womanhood” is demonstrated in every aspect of the 19th century. During the era of slavery women were conditioned to withstanding the emotional toll of violence towards slaves. An illustration from (DuBois 215) Through Women’s Eyes provides and illustration of a women beating a slave and consequently a women being beaten by a man for doing so. This is the pinnacle of hypocrisy, being that despite the ideals of “southern womanhood” a women is taught that violence is only ok against slaves, although when put into application it is prohibited. In the 19th the south had been going through a lot of change and the hardships and as a result the most effected were southern woman and female slaves, as they received the

Read More
1288 Words | 6 Pages

Her tragedy reflects not only the sexism in the African American families in early 20th century, but also the uselessness

Read More
1036 Words | 5 Pages

Specifically, southern white women used this period to elevate their social status so that they could climb the social tower to gain power and compare to men. Southern women wanted to get out of the ideal that women should only be housewives, so they used slaves to relieve themselves of house chores, which brought them away from just being housewives. This elevated them socially because instead of being ridden with housework, they were give leisure time and time to focus on their husbands and wives. Slaves were thought to benefit because slave owners would take care of the slaves and that they would be better off being a slave than running around Africa. Slave owners would give slaves food, shelter, and clothing, take care of their children, and teach them christianity (Jones, 102).

Read More
1523 Words | 7 Pages

As miserable as it is to be a slave in the South, being a black women worsens the condition. The role of a black women in both the Union and the Confederacy have always been portrayed and elaborated on the orthodox that black women are meant for manual labor, for being tools and for assisting men. However, black women in the South are treated much harsher of course. Majority of black women enslaved were vulnerable to rape, physical abuse and having their families taken away. While the Confederacy took black male slaves into the camp, black women were left to care for their children themselves while managing their plantations and other labor.

Read More
1390 Words | 6 Pages

The plantation owners (normally rich white men) relied on their wife, daughters and a person of color (normally a Native American/African American person) to do their work for them to work and manage while the owners were gone. One of the most remarkable women of this time was a woman named Margaret Brent. In America’s Women, Collins states: “Virtually all the colonial women wanted to marry but when they did, they were automatically stripped of their legal rights. Brent was an unmarried woman who “virtually ran the colony of Maryland during a crisis” (12). Brent and her sister were unmarried, so they could own all the land that they wanted.

Read More
1695 Words | 7 Pages

Throughout history, women have been expected to play the role of the chaste, domestic wife, while putting others' needs before their own. A woman’s sexual desires and wants have fallen victim to extreme scrutiny—women are simply not supposed to have them in the first place. Therefore, those women who choose to be expressive in their sexuality have time and again been labeled as “impure” and “sluts” in the general public’s eye. Moreover, Black women who embrace their own sexuality and indulge in their sexual pleasures fall victim to an even greater amount of hostility. Historically, Black women’s bodies have often been seen as aggressively hypersexual and have been fetishized.

Read More
1870 Words | 8 Pages

In a 2010 study that measured gender role belief in nearly 400 African American women, it was noted that the traditional gender role that is ascribed to white American women may not be relevant for African American women (Nguyen, et al., 2010). The cultural experience of African Americans in the United States from slavery to the civil rights era has an impact on their gender role views. The economic, political and social history of African Americans in the United States contribute to gender roles that are not clearly defined between male and female as African Americans men and women were made to perform in both gender roles at times.

Read More

More about The Female In The African-American Community

Related Topics

Open Document